


Martyr's Fall: Falling From Grace

by leonidaslion



Series: Angelwings [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's been going on with Dean, and Sam wants to know what...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sam was asleep when Dean came back to the motel, but he woke up instantly when his brother opened the door, spilling in the sound of the downpour outside. He raised his head, looking blearily toward the door where Dean stood, a dark shape outlined against the falling rain. “Dean?”

“S’all right, Sammy, go back to sleep.” He ducked inside, shutting the door behind him, and put his bag on the floor.

Sam let his head drop back onto his pillow with a sigh. Dean was back, which meant that he could finally relax. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged it out of him, but he spent most of the time Dean was gone in a state of high anxiety. Which was stupid because he’d left Dean alone for almost four years once, parted ways with him since then tons of times, and never had a twinge of concern. Dean, generally speaking, could handle himself. This inane worry—fear, if he was honest with himself—hadn’t begun until recently. Until Aaron Daughtry’s ranch, to be more specific, because he’d been near to panicking by the time Dean had come back. Earringed, tattooed, and with a ‘broken’ cell charger that Sam had pulled out of the trash and tried on his own phone and it had worked just fine, thank you.

Since then Dean had been off—not possessed, although Sam had just about made himself hoarse throwing “Christos” at him that first week or so, just … different. More distant, if that was possible. On edge in a way he hadn’t been since that first year after Dad’s death. And every time he left—visiting old friends, supposedly, which was a laugh because Sam had actually met Dean’s “old friends,” and they weren’t the type of people you took a week off to go visit—Sam had this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong, and that Dean wasn’t coming back: not this time.

And every time his brother walked through the door, the draining of pent-up tension left Sam exhausted. This thing, whatever it was that was going on, had to come to a head soon. He’d give Dean a few more weeks to sort out whatever he was going through, and then they were going to have a little talk.

Lying in the dark, Sam heard the shower go on in the bathroom and it made him smile slightly. Whatever was going on in his brother’s head, Dean was just as vain as ever—man showered every chance he got, sometimes twice a day. Sam drifted on the verge of sleep, mind shuffling through memories of meals on the road—with Dean, with Dad and Dean—that had all taken on the fond cast of times sufficiently distant to be romanticized.

He must have actually fallen asleep at some point because he opened his eyes and, according to the clock next to his bed, two hours had gone by. There was the sound of water falling, which he associated with the rain outside until he managed to drag some shreds of awareness around himself. Then he realized that the noise was coming from the bathroom.

Sam pushed himself up, frowning, and glanced at the other bed. No sign of Dean, except for his bag sitting at the foot. He had obviously fished through it for something in the dark because clothes littered the bed around it, dropped haphazardly. Sam stared at them for a moment, working it through in his head.

The shower was still running and Dean wasn’t in his bed. It had been two hours.

He got out of the bed, fully awake now, and hurried over to the bathroom door. Detoured briefly to grab the gun he’d left on the room’s small table. It was probably nothing—Dean’d probably fallen asleep standing up, God knew he’d done it before: the guy could sleep anywhere—but better safe than sorry in their line of work.

Sam knocked on the door with his free hand, leaning close. “Dean?” he called. “You okay in there, man?”

The sound of cascading water, and otherwise silence. His heart jackhammered against his ribs.

“Dean?” he tried again, louder this time.

Nothing. His hand dropped, found the doorknob. It turned easily in his grasp and he pushed the door open, raising the gun to a firing position.

Dean was standing in the shower, back turned toward Sam and forehead resting against the tiled wall. Water spilled across his skin, shining lines snaking across goosebumps—the hot water had to have been used up ages ago, place like this—and Sam swore, lowering the gun and flipping the safety back on. Dean was going to make himself sick if he kept standing there: if he hadn’t already caught something, that was. Sam had to get him out of there, dry him off, get him into bed … He started forward and then stopped as Dean’s voice, broken and rough, floated back to him.

“’M sorry, ‘m so sorry …” In a litany, on and on and over and over.

Dean's shoulders flexed, the muscles there shifted, and the tattoo breathed into life: the wings stretched out, feathers ruffling. Then Dean’s back went lax again and the illusion was gone. It was just a tattoo again, inked into his brother’s skin.

Sam inched forward a step. “Dean?” he hazarded.

He could tell that Dean had heard him because his brother’s entire body tensed, muscles suddenly cast in sharp relief, and the repeated mumbles cut off. Dean twisted his head a little—not enough for Sam to see any of his face, but enough that he felt acknowledged.

“Sam. Get the hell out.”

“I will. But let’s get you out of there first, okay?” He reached out and Dean flinched, even though Sam knew that his brother couldn’t actually see him.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Come on, man.” Sam averted his eyes as he reached around Dean for the shower knobs and found himself looking at the floor. Where the water was swirling red down the drain. Oh God.

His eyes snapped up again and he grabbed Dean’s arm, manhandling him around quickly. “Dean! Jesus what’s wrong? Where’re you—”

Dean’s skin was unmarked. His eyes were shut, his face empty.

Sam shot a panicked glance down at the drain again and the water was still washing down like blood. It pushed out of the showerhead clear, ran down over his brother’s unmarked body and churned red into the drain.

“Dean, what the hell—”

Dean opened his eyes and Sam’s mouth went dry. There was no pupil there, no white or iris, only a blinding wash of silver. A shadow grew across the tiled shower wall behind him: the spreading of wings.

“It won’t come off, Sammy,” Dean moaned. “It’s inside me and it won’t—I felt her go, so close, felt her heart stop. There was so much blood.”

“Dean, you’re not—Your eyes are ...” He swallowed. Tried again. “What happened?”

Dean’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “You betrayed me, Sam.” The shadow wings dipped in, curling off the wall toward Sam, and he stumbled back, instinct pulling the gun up in his hands, thumb flicking off the safety, and

He jerked up, panting, the sheets sticking to his sweat-soaked body. In the other bed, Dean rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow. His hair was flat on one side, puffed up on the other. His eyes were thick with sleep, but even in the dim room Sam could see that they were Dean’s. They were human.

“Sammy?" he mummbled. "Wha’s wrong? You have a vision?”

Sam shook his head but one hand went to massage at his temples anyway. His heart was still racing in his chest and his legs were trembling. Holy shit that had felt real.

“Nightmare?” Dean tried again. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, pulled himself further upright in the bed.

“Something like that.”

“What about?”

Sam snorted a laugh. Did Dean actually think they was going to have share time here when he’d been shutting Sam out for almost half a year? “Puppies. Round, fluffy ones.”

Dean just looked at him for a minute and then shook his head. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, flipping onto his stomach. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and Sam could see part of his tattoo where the sheet had slipped down.

He lay back, one hand resting limply over his heart, and stared up at the ceiling. God, he hated ceilings. He shut his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at it and listened to his brother’s breathing.

After a few minutes, he opened his mouth and said, “Dean?”

Shifting from the other bed. “Christ, Sam, _what_? I’m trying to sleep over here.”

“If there were something wrong, you’d tell me, right?”

Beat of silence.

“Yeah, sure.”

 _Liar._

“Dean?”

Grudgingly. “What?”

He hesitated. “Never mind.”

A sigh. “Go to sleep, dude.”

But Sam lay awake the rest of the night, thinking. In the end, he stared at the ceiling, and his memory painted flames there, and women. It was better than what he saw with his eyes closed: Dean, his humanity bled away, those silver eyes blazing. _You betrayed me, Sam._ And oh God, he had no idea why, but that felt so true.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean seemed fine in the morning, which was to say that he seemed closed off and on edge. Sam searched his brother for some indication of what was going on and ran into the blank wall that was Dean Winchester. He asked questions about Dean’s trip—checking in with some contacts this time: looking for a job, presumably—and got back fairly monosyllabic answers.

Had he found anything for them? No.

Who, exactly, did he go see again? People.

Did he have a good time? That question just got him a look: one of those patented Dean looks that said it must be some cosmic joke. That Sam couldn’t be his brother because he didn’t have brothers who asked stupid questions like that.

So, yeah, pretty much par for the course, except that Sam, pretending to sleep in his own bed, had watched covertly as Dean got up and dressed in quick, almost angry movements. Watched him pick up his leather coat, glance over to make Sam was still oblivious to the world, and then leave the room without putting it on. Watched him come back inside a few minutes later without it.

Sam wanted to ask what he'd done with it, but he knew that doing so was a sure way to wire his brother's jaws shut. Dean had probably just put it in the Impala, anyway. Also, asking would alert Dean to the fact that Sam was on to him, which Sam in no way wanted. If he was going to figure out what was going on with his brother, he was going to have to catch him off guard: relaxed. Or as relaxed as Dean ever got nowadays.

So when Dean bypassed his opening sallies, Sam offered to go out and pick up some coffee and breakfast for them while Dean looked through the job possibilities Sam had found combing the newspapers. Sam drove the Impala a few blocks over, then pulled off into the back parking lot of a hardware store and stopped. Searched the Impala from the front fenders to the bumper. Came up empty handed.

He left the Impala there and jogged back over to the motel, careful to stay out of sight from the room’s window, in case Dean bothered to look out. Dean had only been gone a few minutes when he went out that morning, so he hadn’t gone far. Sam started searching, using the grid pattern their dad had taught them. He found the coat in the dumpster behind the motel. His hands shook as he pulled it out to examine it.

It looked the same as always: worn and scuffed. Small stitches where something had sliced it open and Dean had repaired it. He lifted it for a closer look and caught a whiff of lemon. What the hell? Sniffed the coat and the leather smell was buried under lemon, which meant that Dean had washed it. Which meant that something had been on it. What? Sam held the coat loosely in his hands, staring at it.

He shook with the effort of not storming back into the motel and throwing the coat at Dean’s feet. Normally, if he forced an issue, Dean caved. Dean hated it, but if Sam pushed hard enough all of those defenses Dean kept around himself crumbled. Usually. But Sam couldn’t be sure, with the way his brother had been acting lately, that he wouldn’t just cut and run. More Sam’s style, sure, but Dean hadn’t seemed all that concerned with staying around lately. Or, worse, forcing the issue might accidentally shatter that razor’s edge of self-control Dean had been clinging to. Sam had no idea what would happen then, and he didn’t want to find out. Those first few months after Dad had been bad enough.

So in the end, coat held tightly in one fist, he went back to the Impala. Where he folded his brother's leather coat and hid it carefully under the passenger seat. When he got a chance, he’d move it somewhere safer: his bag, probably. Dean left that alone: gave him all the privacy he could with the way they lived.

Sam kept the coat because he couldn’t bear to leave it lying in the dumpster, as though he’d be throwing away some vital part of his brother if he did that. And because there was going to be a time when he and Dean would have to talk about this, and damn the consequences.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Took you long enough,” Dean said curtly when Sam got back to the room with two steaming coffees and a bag of food. “Get your shit together and meet me in the car.”

“Dean,” Sam started, trying to juggle the coffee, food, and the door at once. “What do you—”

“We’re moving out. Oregon. If we push, we can be there tomorrow.”

“Dean, Oregon’s over a thousand miles from here—”

“Yeah, and it isn’t getting any closer. Car, Sam. Now.” He shoved past Sam, bag slung over his shoulder. Didn’t even glance at the coffee or the food, which… Even on hunts, Dean could never quite get his mind off of food. Not unless whatever they were after was standing right in front of them.

 _Damn it, Dean._

Sam left the coffee and the food on the dresser while he packed, shoving things into his bag with more force than was strictly necessary. Oregon. Which of the jobs was that? Oh yeah, a series of female deaths, corpses partially dessicated. They’d each showed signs of having had sex right before they died. Incubus, then.

Sam left the coffee and the food in the room when he went out. Dean didn’t seem to notice.


	2. Chapter 2

They found the incubus soon enough when they got to Oregon. No, correction: they found the _incubi_ soon enough when they got to Oregon. Because after they had cornered the first one and Sam had sent the thing back to hell where it belonged, there’d been another death. But it only took them one more day to find the rest, in the burnt-out remains of what had once been a warehouse.

Sam dispatched his demon easily enough, as things went. The cut on his cheek was painful, but not too deep, and it would heal. He staggered up and away from the quickly disintegrating body and looked around for Dean. Found him at the other end of the room, bent over the struggling form of the last incubus.

Sam could hear fiercely growled words, and although he couldn’t make them out, he figured that Dean remembered the exorcism all right. His brother’s shoulder was jerking, though—thing was fighting him on it, of course—and Sam sprinted across to help hold it down so that Dean could finish. And then, when he got close enough to see, he felt his heart drop into his stomach and send them both down through the floor, somewhere in the region of the earth’s core.

Dean wasn’t exorcising the demon.

He was holding it down with his body, one knee pushed against the thing’s chest, while his left hand was curled around its skull, pulling the head back. It was obviously a difficult thing to do one-handed because his grip kept slipping as the incubus thrashed its head and he kept having to reestablish his hold on it. His other hand was otherwise occupied.

Sam skidded to a stop, muscles frozen in sheer shock, and stared at his brother.

The demon was fighting Dean, yeah, but that hadn’t been why Dean’s shoulder was moving like that. No, his shoulder was jerking in that rise and fall motion because he was cutting—no, sawing—through the demon’s face along the jaw line. He was more than halfway through now and there was blood everywhere, black and smoking. The gleam of streetlights on the knife, on the knob of jawbone that shone through where the lower half of the demon’s face was hanging off, was horribly bright.

God, why wasn’t it screaming? Maybe Sam had gone deaf from the shock, that could have been it, but he could hear Dean, so probably not. Dean wasn’t chanting the words they had both memorized: he had a litany of his own.

“You like that, fucker? See you bite someone now. Got a nice knife you can chew on here. Fucking bastard. Come on, let’s hear it. Scream for me.”

It didn't scream, though, and as the thing tried to buck Dean off and Dean twisted to keep it pinned, Sam saw why. The demon wasn't screaming because it couldn't: Dean had cut a hole in its throat before he started in on its face. More blood gurgled up from its jugular, and Sam could see what looked like tubes poking out through that hole, as though his brother had cut and then reached in and pulled.

And Sam knew, suddenly, that that was exactly what Dean had done. He even knew why. Dean hadn’t wanted Sam to hear. Hadn’t wanted to distract Sam with the sound of whatever he was doing. But Sam didn’t know if that had been out of concern for his safety or because Dean just didn’t want to be interrupted.

It took hours to get his legs going again. Took fucking years to cross the space left between him and his brother. Decades to get a good grip on Dean’s shoulder and pull.

Dean came up swinging the knife and Sam had a second or so to think, _This is it_ , as he watched the blood-slicked blade moving for his throat. Because Dean wouldn’t recognize him in time, wouldn’t be able to stop himself, but then he felt himself falling backwards—Dean had pushed him, the asshole—and Dean’s swing was taking him through the space Sam’s head had been a moment before and then he overbalanced and tumbled down on the floor himself. The knife was under his brother’s body as he fell and Sam realized that he hadn’t been panicked before, not really, because he was _now_ and it was a completely different beast.

“Dean!” He scrambled up on his knees and over to his brother, reaching, but Dean was already moving, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees with a shuddering jerk.

Knife, knife. Sam was looking for it, trying to find it buried in his brother’s stomach, but it wasn’t there. Dean was holding it, and it was covered in something dark and viscous—demon’s blood or his brother’s? Because just because it wasn’t buried hilt deep in Dean now didn’t mean that it hadn’t been a moment ago, and…

“Go wait outside, Sam.” Dean wasn’t even looking at him. Was staring at the demon. Sam spared it a quick glance to make sure it wasn’t coming after them, and saw that the thing was trying to crawl away, siphoning blood as it went. Dean rolled to his feet in one smooth movement, moving after it, and Sam lunged. Caught his brother around the legs. This time when Dean came down, he lost his grip on the knife and it skittered off into the shadows somewhere.

Sam had a moment of pure relief and then Dean was on him, one hand curled around Sam’s throat, pushing down like he was trying to reach through Sam into the concrete, and the other bracing Dean on the floor. Lower, one of Dean’s knees was digging into Sam’s stomach, the other was resting next to his body. Sam tried to sit up and Dean shoved him back, hand and knee, hard.

“What the _fuck_ , Sam,” he ground out. There was blood on his face—spray from cutting the thing’s throat, probably. Over Dean’s shoulder, Sam thought he caught a glimpse of something: saw some moving shadow and thought _incubus_ even as his brain cancelled that one out and replaced it with _wings_. Then Dean’s face was registering him—actually registering that it was _Sam_ here that he was trying to shove through the floor—and the shadow was gone.

“Dean, please…”

But Dean was climbing off him, dragging Sam’s knife from his belt sheath as he went.

“Don’t!” Sam choked, floundering for his feet.

Dean ignored him, striding over to the incubus and leaning down, flipping it over onto its back. Its hands came up, weakly, trying to ward him off, but Dean ignored them. He shoved Sam’s knife through the incubus’ sternum, and Sam heard the blade imbed itself in the concrete floor. Latin poured in a stream from his brother’s lips and the incubus, writhing in pain against the exorcism, actually looked relieved.

“ _In nomine patri, et filii, et spiritus. Amen_ ,” Dean finished in a rush. The demon’s thrashing stopped abruptly and the blood-soaked body started to disintegrate around the knife. Dean stood over it, waiting, and when there was nothing left but a black smear on the floor, he yanked the knife free and turned around.

Sam stared at him, all his words gone. Just sat there on the floor as his brother walked up and stood over him. Dean’s eyes were hooded, empty. His face showed only a great weariness. He dropped the knife on the floor next to Sam and walked away, out of the warehouse. Sam sat listening for the purr of the Impala’s motor. Heard nothing.

Finally, he picked himself up and trailed outside. Dean wasn’t there, leaning against the Impala. Wasn’t pacing the glass-littered ground. Wasn’t sitting, still as stone, behind the wheel, waiting for Sam to get his ass in gear. Wasn’t _anywhere_.

Sam stood there, trying to feel something: anything. After a few minutes, he got into the Impala, started her up, and pulled away. He was halfway to the motel before he realized that he’d left his knife back at the warehouse, and that was when he pulled over to the side of the road, dropped his head down on the steering wheel, and cried.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean was waiting for him back at the room, and for a second Sam was so floored by relief that he couldn’t breathe. Dean had been there long enough to shower, thank God, and had changed his clothes.

“Dean…” Sam stopped. God, what was he supposed to say? He’d been waiting for a confrontation, preparing himself for it, but there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for the sight of his brother torturing something, even if it was a demon.

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“Sorry?” That did it. Sam stormed inside, flinging the door shut behind him. “You’re sorry, Dean? What exactly are you sorry for? For lying to me? For letting yourself get so fucking wound up in whatever this is that you just fucking lost it? For slicing that demon up like a side of meat? _What_ , Dean?”

“All of it. Everything. I should have told you, Sam. I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”

“What is it, Dean? What’s wrong?” Sam dropped down on the bed next to his brother. Suddenly, he couldn’t find the energy to be angry about this anymore. Partly because he was just wiped, both physically and emotionally. Partly because this was his fault, in a way. His fault for not forcing Dean to talk about it sooner.

“I…” Dean’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Look, Sam, Cassie’s dead, okay?”

 _Oh. Shit. Oh, okay. Shit. Come on, Sam, process._ “Dean, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“Incubus.”

Oh. They were reaching whole new levels of understanding here. Sam thought about asking when, but he knew that already. Dean must’ve gotten the call during the job at Aaron Daughtry’s ranch.

“Dean, I—Is there anything I can do?”

Dean shook his head. “I just … I miss her, man. She shouldn’t be dead. She didn’t deserve to die so young. She …” His eyes fluttered shut, hands fisting in the comforter. Remembering something. “I should’ve saved her. Should’ve been strong enough to stop it.”

“Dean, you couldn’t do anything to help her. We weren’t anywhere near there: hadn’t heard anything.”

Dean's face shut down as he came back from wherever he’d just gone. “I know that, Sam.”

Yeah, probably, but he didn’t _know_ it. Maybe never would. That was just the way Dean worked. “Did you get it? Is that where you’ve been disappearing to? You’re hunting it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, Sam. I’m hunting it. Haven’t found it yet, though.”

Sam nodded. “We will, Dean. We can drop everything else, do some research.”

“No!” Then, calmer, Dean repeated, “No, Sam. This is something I have to do for myself.”

Sam frowned. For a second there, Dean had sounded—scared?

Dean shifted so that he could look at Sam. “I mean it, man. This is personal, okay? Just between me and it.”

And yeah, Sam got that, he really did. But … Dean had sounded … and …

“Sam?” Dean was waiting for a response.

“Yeah, okay. But, Dean, you’ve gotta talk to someone about this.”

“Yeah, sure.” Dean stood up, rolled his shoulders.

“I mean it, man. You’ve seen what happens when you bottle things up. You can’t just…”

“I said I would, Sam. Now drop it.”

 _Liar. Fucking liar._ But Dean had closed himself off again, and pushing now would only start a fight. Sam sighed. At least he knew what was wrong now, could watch for signs that Dean was getting close to that point again. Because there was no way Sam was letting his brother lose himself like that again. They were already covered in enough darkness: they didn’t need to add to it themselves. And torture …Torture was too close to the edge, even if it had been one of the things they hunted. If Dean lost it again, Sam was afraid he’d go farther, and he wasn’t letting that happen. He wasn’t letting his brother become a murderer.

Not ever.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean seemed to be on a more even keel after that. He was obviously still having difficulty coping, but all that nervous energy that had been making him so edgy before was now channeled into the job. He had the next hunt set up before they finished with the current one, keeping them on a tight schedule more consistently than Dad ever had. When Sam got hurt, Dean took point on his own, downgrading their hunts to imps or something similarly easy so that Sam wouldn’t worry about his brother out there with his back unprotected. Dean himself never got hurt, which Sam chose to read as a good sign.

And once a month, sometimes twice, Dean would pack the Impala up and drop Sam off in the nearest big city. Told him to take advantage of the shore leave, cause when he got back there was this ghost in Pittsburgh, or a redcap in Portland. Then he went hunting, alone, for the incubus that had killed Cassie.

Sam didn’t know how Dean was supposed to know that it was the right one when he found it, and maybe Dean didn’t either, but he couldn’t seem to leave it alone. There was no telling when the urge to do something about it would strike him—or maybe contacts were texting him leads, for all Sam knew—because once a whole month went by where Dean seemed to forget all about it, and another time he had only been back with Sam for a day before announcing that he had to leave again.

Which was strange, sure, but there was no sign that he was skirting close to the edge the way he had back in Oregon, and Sam was watching his brother like the proverbial hawk. If Dean dropped any hints that he wasn’t holding it together— _any_ —then Sam was going to hogtie him and drag him to Missouri’s. Because there was no one more qualified than a psychic for dealing with someone who didn’t have the balls to open his mouth and ask when he needed help.

But as time spun past it was looking more and more as though he wasn’t going to need to do any such thing. Dean was a little more serious—driven almost—but Sam had known hunters who were worse in that respect. Their own father, for one. At least Dean knew how to let his hair down, metaphorically speaking. Once, when it had been apparent to him that Sam was exhausted and fed up with the whole hunting busines, he’d driven overnight to Orlando. Pulled up in front of Disneyworld, and then, even more amazing, shelled out six hundred dollars for two three-day passes.

Sam Christoed him on principle, but Dean had only shrugged, grinned wide, and said, “Hey, you always wanted to go, right?”

Sam would have been completely satisfied with life if he could have gotten rid of the dreams. No, not _those_ dreams—who was he kidding, he was stuck with _those_ —but the nightmares he got when Dean came back from his solo hunts. He didn’t get them every time, but when he did they were bad. Bad like the one he’d gotten in the motel room before Washington.

~~~

Dean pinned to a wall in a basement somewhere by knives that were well on their way to becoming swords. Crying and laughing and shaking his head in denial as a figure Sam couldn’t make out slid more in, turning his brother into a pincushion until he stopped laughing and started screaming. Until he was nodding _yes, oh yes_.

~~~

Dean standing in front of the gates of a mansion, hands shoved deep into his pockets, just out of sight of the security cameras. He didn’t seem to be doing anything other than waiting there, but there was a look of intense concentration on his face. A woman appeared on the other side of the gate and looked out at him, expression desperate and hungry. Then the woman was punching some kind of code into a box by the gate with shaking hands and stumbling through, stumbling toward Dean, who caught her as she reached him. She was kissing Dean, trying to drink him in—and was this going to be _that_ kind of a dream, because if so, _ew_ —but then Dean was turning his face away, hiding himself, and there was a disappointed noise from the woman as she clawed at his chest, trying to push through the layers Dean always swathed himself in to find skin, and then she wasn’t moving at all anymore, and Dean was lying her body down on the pavement and pulling his knife back from her chest, where he’d slid it painlessly into her heart.

~~~

Dean, sitting at some grandmother’s kitchen table with a full afternoon tea for two set out in front of him while the demon—the yellow eyed son of a bitch that had dogged them their whole lives—sat smiling across from him. Dean’s eyes were fixed hard on the demon, terrified as it reached over the table for him hungrily, and he shrank back to catch up against something tall and shadowed. Something hideous.

~~~

And that was the worst dream, not because of the demon, but because Sam knew that whatever that shadowy thing he couldn’t see was, it wanted something from his brother. It wanted something worse than anything the demon could invent. And Dean couldn’t seem to see that at all.

The dream that came most often, though, was mostly just confusing. In it, Dean was in bed with a girl who looked like she should have been familiar: red hair in a mass, soft skin, sweet face. What he could see of her face, anyway, because one of Dean’s hands was over her mouth, and his other was pressed against her heart. There was a knife in that one. But the girl didn’t look frightened: she looked sympathetic. She was reaching up over her head and stroking Dean’s face, stroking away the tears that were trailing down his cheeks. And then there were wings sweeping up from his brother’s back—wings that seemed formed of fog and smoke—and they cupped down around the two of them and that was when Sam woke up.

So, yeah, damned bad dreams, but they weren’t Dreams—weren’t visions. But they weren’t just dreams, either, and Sam thought that maybe he was somehow slipping into Dean’s subconscious: that maybe this was how Dean saw himself. That woman coming to his brother through the gates, and the redhead in the bed, could represent Cassie in Dean’s mind. Dean had killed the one, been locked in a knife-wielding embrace with the other. Sam didn’t really need a psychiatrist to tell him that was symbolic of his brother blaming himself for Cassie’s death. The others were more difficult to interpret. Dean being tortured? Dean and the demon? Sometimes, Dean fighting with strange men, killing them? Doing things to them that Sam knew his brother would never do?

God, his brother’s mind was a frightening place.

But every morning when he woke up Dean was sprawled in his own bed, healthy, and annoyed if Sam woke him up to check on him. He grinned during the day, made jokes about Sam’s hair and height and intelligence and monkish habits and everything else under the sun. He hunted. Didn’t try separating any more demons from their lower jaws. So Sam figured that, on the whole, things were going pretty well for them. And so it went for a little under a year.

Then Bobby called and everything started to fall apart.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“… so you boys be careful out there, okay?”

“Always are.” But Sam wasn’t smiling. God, this was bad news.

“Be more careful, then. Call me if anything seems … off.”

“Will do. You take care yourself, Bobby.”

“Hey, I’m sitting on top of an arsenal here. Anything tries to come at me, I’ll blow it back to Hell where it belongs.”

Sam managed a small smile at that and hung up, shaking his head. Dean looked up from the other bed where he was cleaning their guns.

“Problem?” he asked. Meaning, of course, had Bobby given them something to hunt?

“Looks like.” Sam tossed the cell down next to him and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Something’s been taking hunters out—not greenies, either: seasoned men.”

“Yeah?” Dean sounded vaguely interested, went back to cleaning his shotgun.

“It’s been happening for a few months now, but it took Bobby a while to put it together. Hunting doesn’t exactly come with a retirement plan, and at first he figured that it was just the job catching up.”

“So how come he thinks it’s not now?” Dean snapped the shotgun back together, sighted down its barrel, and exchanged it for one of the smaller guns.

Sam felt a little calmer watching his brother work: a little safer. Anything coming for them would have to get through Dean first, and good luck to it. “Too many people too good at the job too close together. Then, last month, Andrew Baxter’s security system caught a glimpse of it on tape. Didn’t get a great look at it—it was too dark—but Bobby said it had wings. Says people have taken to calling it the Angel of Death.”

Dean’s hands stilled on the gun but he didn’t look up. “I didn’t know Andrew had a surveillance system set up,” he said.

“A week earlier and he wouldn’t have. Just had it put in a few days before the thing got him. You knew him? From where?”

Dean lifted his shoulders in a shrug and he went back to oiling the gun’s chamber. “Friend of Dad’s. We stayed with him a few times while you were doing your thing in California.”

“Oh. Well, uh, Bobby just called to make sure we knew about it, since we don’t check in all that much. Told us to be careful.”

“We’re always careful,” Dean said.

“That’s what I said.” Sam fell quiet for a while, thinking, and when Dean had finished with the guns and was starting to load them up again, he offered, “Maybe we should look into this.”

“What? No.” Dean shook his head. “We’re leaving it alone, Sam.” And his tone said, _End of conversation_.

But Sam had been remembering his dreams—those shadowy wings that had wrapped around Dean—and he was wondering if he’d been wrong. Maybe they had been visions after all, some kind of warning. Maybe this thing, whatever it was, was coming after Dean next. And yeah, Sam didn’t _think_ it could take his brother down, but what if Dean was focused on something else, like the demon? Another dream snapped into place: Dean at a kitchen table, attention fixed on the demon while behind him something worse was looming. So he pressed for it.

“What if it comes after us? Shouldn’t we be trying to take it out first?”

“It’s not coming after us, Sam. Trust me.”

“Why not? How can you be so sure?”

Dean turned on him, eyes heated. “Because it isn’t real, okay? Christ, Sam, ‘the Angel of Death’?”

“Bobby saw it on Andrew’s tape…”

“So? So something Andrew was hunting turned the tables on him. He got sloppy, he got dead. End of story. Hunters don’t exactly get to live to a ripe old age.”

“Bobby said…”

“'Bobby said', huh? Because his word is golden all of a sudden?”

“He’s never steered us wrong before, Dean.”

“I don’t believe this! Bobby calls you up out of the blue and says that there’s an _angel of death_ hunting down hunters and you believe him? An _angel_ , Sam? That people have—maybe—seen some kind of blurry image of on one tape. Killing one hunter. Don’t you think if this thing were real someone would have seen it by now? Tracked it? Killed it?”

“I don’t know, Dean. Maybe someone’s tried. Maybe they’re dead now.”

Dean snorted, disgusted. “Listen to yourself, man. It’s a ghost story. A ghost story for people who hunt ghosts. There was one making the rounds when you were five, too; I heard Dad talking about it. That time it was a phantom lake, swallowed all the hunters got within ten counties of it. Turned out half the guys it was supposed to have eaten were down in Tijuana spending some quality time with Jose.”

“Okay, I get that, Dean. But shouldn’t we at least look into this? Just to make sure?”

“You want to waste time chasing down some urban legend while people are _dying_ out there?”

Sam wanted to argue that they had spent their entire lives chasing down urban legends, but he could already tell that he wasn’t getting anywhere with Dean. Not this time. He could leave and try to do some digging on his own, but that would leave Dean unprotected, and if he _had_ been having some kind of prophetic dreams, he wanted to be there to back his brother up.

Dean took Sam’s silence for the acceptance it was and went back to putting the guns away. “You’ll see, Sam. Few months and all this ‘angel of death’ shit’ll die down and people’ll be talking about something else.”

But it didn’t.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I should be back in a couple of days.”

“Yeah, I know the drill, Dean.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow at him and continued, “If I’m not back by then—”

“—just wait longer. Yeah, I got it the first hundred times.”

“Enjoy yourself, Sammy. See the sights, get drunk, get laid.”

“Dean …” Exasperated.

“What? Make you a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around, dude.”

“Just … Dean, will you just be careful? That ang—”

“See you in a few days.” And he was gone.

He’d left Sam in Boston this time, which was novel because somehow they never ended up spending much time on the east coast. Sam buried his fears for his brother’s safety as best he could and let himself be normal for a few days. Did stupid tourist shit like walk the Freedom Trail and ride in one of those Duck Boats the city was so famous for. Went to an Irish bar because that was part of “doing the city” and actually enjoyed himself when they had a live band. Then, on the third day, he got a phone call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, is this Sam?” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“Yeah, it is, can I help you?”

“I’m sorry to just call you like this, but I left a few messages on Dean’s phone and he hasn’t returned my calls. I wanted to make sure he was okay with everything. Has he said anything to you?”

God who was this? It was driving him nuts. “He’s away on personal business for a few days.”

“Oh. I wasn’t sure … I’m sorry I called you like this, Sam. I just … I thought maybe … I guess I’ll try him again, then.”

“Hey, wait!” Sam _could_ always ask Dean when he got back, and he’d feel like a damn fool for asking when she obviously knew who _he_ was, but it would drive him nuts in the meantime. She sounded so familiar … “I know this sounds pretty bad, but, um, who is this?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have said. It’s Cassie. Cassie Robinson? From Missouri?”

The world short-circuited for a second. When it came back online, Cassie was saying his name into the phone. “Sam? Are you there? Sam?”

“Yeah … Yeah, I’m here. You sound … good.” _For someone who’s supposed to have died a year ago._

“Oh, I am, Sam. I’m—Dean’ll probably tell you when he gets back, but as long as you’re on the phone—I’m getting married. Can you believe it?” She gave a little laugh. “I sure as hell can’t.”

“That’s great, Cassie. That’s real … great.”

“You don’t think he’ll mind, do you? Because I really want him to be okay with this.”

“Yeah. Um. Cassie, I have to go. It was nice talking to you.” He hung up without waiting for a reply. Stood staring at the people strolling past him through the Boston Commons. So. Cassie. He wondered idly when Dean had become such a good liar. Wondered if this was partly his own fault for wanting to believe his brother. For wanting any explanation he could pin on Dean’s behavior, even if it wasn’t the right one. Nah, on second thought he’d let Dean have this one all to himself.

Somehow he managed to get himself back to the hotel room in one piece. Then he sat down on the worn bed and waited for Dean to get back. He had no idea what he was going to say.


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, Sam said nothing. He said nothing because Dean was just going to lie again, just going to make something else up to shield himself. To keep Sam out of whatever was going on. Sam wasn’t letting his brother do that again, which meant that he needed more to throw at him than a phone call from his supposedly deceased ex. So when Dean strolled back into the hotel room two days later, Sam pretended nothing was wrong— _ha, take that Dean, didn’t know I could lie right back at you, did you?_ —and waited for Dean to take off again.

Three weeks later, Dean was gone and Sam was at Des Moines National Airport with a plane ticket to California in his hand. He hoped that his brother wouldn’t get back before him, but he wasn’t really too concerned. He’d have something to force the issue with by then, god and modern science willing.

Dave met him at the other end when his plane landed. Slapped him into a bear hug and laughed. “Sam, my man! It’s been way too long!”

“Hey, Dave. Good to see you too, man. How’s Leigh?”

“Married.”

“To you or someone else?”

Dave grinned and held up his left hand, gold band on the wedding finger.

“You dog, you!” Sam thumped him on the shoulder. He felt relaxed for the first time since he’d received that phone call from Cassie in Boston. Being around one of his old Stanford friends always got him that way.

“So,” Dave said as he was leading Sam out to his car, one arm slung over his shoulder. “How long you here for?”

“Just a few days. Actually, Dave, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Oh, man, here it comes. What is it?”

“I, uh ... Rebecca told you I’m kind of into the detective business, right?”

Dave nodded. “Yeah, sure. Said you and your brother were in it together. You look into weird cases, right? Like Mulder and Scully?”

“Right. So, uh, I’m working this case right now and I need you to see what you can get on a piece of evidence for me. You think you can find some time in the lab to do a little analysis?” They’d reached Dave’s car, which was the same deathtrap of a Ford he’d been driving the last time Sam had seen him because they didn’t pay grad students all that much, even if they were one of the most promising molecular chemists to come along in the last decade or so.

“I think so. What’ve you got for me?”

Sam slung his bag on the roof of Dave’s Ford and rummaged through it. Found what he was looking for and handed it to his old friend. “This. I need you to find out what was on it, if you can. The, uh, suspect tried to clean it off.”

Dave looked down at Dean’s coat, mind obviously already numbering the tests he could try on it. “Sure. I’ll do what I can.” The he looked up and smiled. “Hey, want to grab some lunch at Giorgio’s?”

Sam forced himself to smile back. “Sounds great.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The tests took longer than Dave had expected, so Sam had to fly back without any results. He could have waited a few more days, but there was no point in risking Dean getting back first when Sam wasn’t even sure that the coat would yield anything. Besides, Dave could always call him with the information. Dean wasn’t waiting for him when Sam got back to the motel room, but he showed up later that evening, which was cutting it closer than Sam would have liked. Whatever Dean had been up to hadn’t taken long this time, then.

Dave called with the results two days later, while Dean was out getting them dinner. His voice was excited. “Hey, Sam, I think you’ve got the right guy.”

“What’d you find?” Sam’s stomach fluttered nervously as he swallowed.

“Blood. Lots of it. Definitely human. I’ve got this friend who has a friend in the crime lab out in New York, and I faxed him a sample to see if he could come up with anything—that’s what took so long.”

“And?”

“Whatever your guy used to clean the coat with destroyed the DNA chains. They couldn’t tag it. Sorry, Sam.”

“That’s okay. You think you could send the coat back to me?”

“Yeah, sure. Usual address, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Will do.”

Dean came back a few minutes after Sam hung up with McDonald's in one hand and Tim Horton’s in the other. “Dinner and dessert,” he said, dropping the bags on the table. Sam looked up at his brother. Swallowed the shouted accusations he wanted to make. It wasn’t enough, not yet. That blood could have been Dean’s, the number of times he’d gotten injured while wearing that coat. Sam just … just had to wait a little longer. There was one more avenue he wanted to investigate first.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A month of waiting. A month of staring at Dean when his brother was otherwise occupied and wondering. A month of looking for _something_ , not yet sure what it was, or if he was going to like it when he found it, and coming up empty-handed. A month of lies thrown back and forth, of empty banter. Of hunting and killing and hunting again. And then, fucking _finally_ , Dean was driving toward Houston with the same, tired old mantra of “time for a little shore leave, Sammy. Check out Houston a little. I hear the Astros are playing.”

Yeah, okay. Could Dean pick up some tickets before he left? He always had better luck with that kind of thing than Sam did.

Sure, he had enough time to do that.

Great.

Sam spent the time Dean was out hunting for tickets doing a little hunting of his own. He got lucky at the first lot he tried: they had a ’98 Honda Civic for sale that they were willing to let him walk off the lot with after charging his credit card—Ralph Hanson, this time—for a thousand dollars and taking the other three hundred in cash. The car was in rough shape, but he figured it would do.

He was back in the room well before Dean. Took the tickets with just the right amount of thanks when his brother showed up again, went through the whole song and dance with him about ‘just waiting longer’ if he wasn’t back in a couple of days, and then took the stairs down while Dean rode in the elevator. Hurried over to the Civic, which he'd parked in front of the building, while Dean strolled around to the parking lot to retrieve the Impala.

Sam had been worried that it would be difficult to keep up with Dean once they were out of the city—the Impala had a lot of muscle under the hood while Sam’s junker was on its last legs—but Dean was obviously in no hurry to get wherever he was going. He drove slower than Sam had ever seen him drive before, barely creeping along in the slow lane at 50 miles an hour while cars whizzed past to his left. They drove all afternoon and all night, stopping only for gas, and Sam was so exhausted when Dean pulled off onto I-70 E that he didn’t realize where his brother was leading him until he saw the sign.

 _Welcome to Lawrence._

What the hell?

His phone rang and Sam fumbled it up, keeping an eye on his brother’s taillights. “Yeah?”

“Sam Winchester? Is that you?”

“Missouri. Oh, hey, hi.”

“I felt you coming,” she said before he could ask. “You stopping by for a visit?”

“Um, no, actually. I don’t think so. Missouri, has … has Dean been by to see you?”

“Dean? No, why?”

Sam ignored the question. “If Dean was in Lawrence, would you know it?”

“I’m not a radar, honey. I only felt you because you’re powerful loud. Dean’s quiet—self-contained. I don’t think I’d hear him ‘til he was standing on my front step.”

“Oh.”

“Sam, what’s going on? Is Dean in trouble?”

“I don’t know yet, Missouri. Can I call you back later?”

“You do that, Sam.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget now!”

“I won’t.” He hung up, tossed the phone into the passenger seat. Lawrence. Why the hell was Dean coming here? He’d been back twice since Dad had driven them away when they were kids, and both times he’d only come because Sam had dragged him here.

Dean was still driving slowly, almost as though he didn’t want to end up at his destination, but he wasn’t making any wrong turns: knew exactly where he was going. Dean’s crawling pace meant that Sam was taken by surprise when he turned off the road and into the driveway of an inoffensive-looking house on Vermont Street. Sam continued past and then took a left, having spotted a public parking lot for the park that was on the other side of the street. He pulled in and got out, then sprinted through the park back to the house Dean had turned in to. The sun was just starting to come up and he crouched behind a bush, screening himself, to wait.

He couldn’t see Dean or the Impala, but there was a light on somewhere in the house—somewhere in the back. He could see the outline of a window printed on the driveway where the light shone through. The sun was almost completely up thirty minutes later when he spotted Dean heading away from the house toward the garage in the back, his shoulders hunched.

Sam hesitated, not sure whether to follow Dean again or to move closer to the house: try to get some answers there. Then he swung around abruptly, hurrying back through the park to the Civic. The house would still be there after he was done tailing Dean, and he could always come back then. If he let Dean out of his sight now, he wouldn’t be able to pick up his brother's trail again until he returned to Houston. So, follow now: investigate later.

This time the drive was shorter, but it was more difficult to follow Dean on the back streets he was using. If his brother hadn’t been inching along, Sam would have lost him within the first hour. It was midmorning when they left Kansas and entered Nebraska, moving first north, and then west. Around one o’clock, the pavement turned into packed dirt and Sam, dismayed, forced himself to fall back further and further, until he was following a distant dust cloud. Even so, if Dean looked back—if he was looking for a tail—then Sam was caught. It was too open out here: too empty. Luck was with Sam, though, because Dean kept driving: didn’t seem to notice. And then, finally, the dust cloud turned off onto a smaller dirt road marked by a mailbox with the name Forrester printed on it in block letters.

Sam pulled off to the side of the road and stared at the mailbox, frowning. That couldn’t be _Landon_ Forrester, could it? The hunter they’d spent a summer with while Dad was off doing something? Sam looked around for some kind of reference point, but there was only the dirt road and the mailbox and rows of corn, high and full at the height of summer. But the man had lived in Nebraska, Sam remembered that much. Still, why would Dean be visiting him now? Information? Was Landon fencing weapons?

 _One way to find out_ , he told himself, and drove a little further down the main road before pulling off to the side and parking. His heart was thudding in his chest as he got out. He slid one of the guns into his pants at the small of his back and let his shirt fall down over it. Then he was moving through the corn, close enough to the road that he would be able to see if it veered one way or the other. Then the corn was opening in front of him and he slowed. Moved close to the edge and peered out on a small farm surrounded by the corn. Old truck up on concrete blocks, old dog lying still in the sun. The Impala pulled up in front of the house, Dean shoved up against it while a heavy-set, bearded man frisked him at gunpoint.

Sam stepped forward, hand going to the gun, and then forced himself to stand down. Dean had come here of his own free will, and the man—and, yeah, it did look like Sam’s memories of Landon—didn’t seem to actually want to shoot anyone. It was more like he was being cautious. A few seconds later, Landon was backing up, gun still on Dean, but now he had Dean’s wallet in one hand and he was flipping it open, glancing down. _Pictures,_ Sam realized. _He’s making sure Dean is who he says he is._

Apparently Landon recognized something there—Dad, maybe, or Dean himself at a younger age—because he finally lowered the gun and Dean turned around. Sam saw Landon toss the wallet back to Dean and jerk his head at the house. Dean nodded and then said something—Sam was too far away to hear anything—and Landon nodded back. Headed for the house while Dean opened the passenger door of the Impala and tossed his wallet in. Then Dean took off his leather coat—bought last winter to replace the one he’d thrown away—and put that inside as well. Took a glance behind him at Landon, who had reached the front steps, and ducked his head, lifting something up and off—his amulet, Sam realized with a lurch of his stomach—and threw that in as well. Then he shut the door and jogged after Landon. They both went inside, where Sam couldn’t see anything.

He sure as hell heard the gun when it went off a few minutes later, though, and then he was up and running, cursing himself for not moving sooner because that was his _brother_ in there and Landon was obviously nuts—obviously fucking crazy and _shooting_ at his brother. Then there were two more shots, both in close succession. Followed by the sound of nothing.

Whatever had happened in there was obviously over, and so Sam detoured himself. Moved toward the side of the house instead of the front door, so that he could get an idea of what he was walking into before he engaged. He was praying like hell that Dean was still alive, that he’d managed to get Landon even though the son of a bitch had gotten the drop on him, and then he peered in the living room window and he wasn’t thinking anything at all anymore.

Because it was quiet, yeah, but it wasn’t over. Not quite yet.

Dean was standing in the living room, angled away from the window so that Sam couldn’t see his face, and he had a hold of Landon’s shotgun by the barrel and the hilt. He was using the gun to pin Landon to the wall by his throat, holding him up so that his feet dangled a few inches above the floor. Landon’s hands were curled around the barrel next to Dean's, futilely trying to shove it away. Sam's view of Landon’s face and bulging eyes was dim because he was looking at the man through a shadow in the shape of a wing. There were two of them, each sprouting from one of Dean's shoulder blades in an agitated roiling of fog and smoke.

As Sam watched, Landon finally went limp. The wings spread wide, snapping open, and then they were shrinking, sinking down into Dean’s back as he lowered Landon to the floor.

 _Oh my God. Oh my God._

Sam stumbled away from the window. Somehow wandered back into the corn were he stopped and was noisily sick. After, he stared at the puke between his hands and wondered when it had happened. Wondered when the … thing … down there had replaced his brother. Wondered if Dean was still alive somewhere. Did that thing need to keep Dean alive to maintain his form? Or could it wear Dean’s face like a mask even when Dean was dead, his body lying torn and alone somewhere, and Sam was so _fucking stupid_! Trying to save his brother all this time, and Dean was already … already ... He couldn’t think it.

Sam shook his head. Tried to force his hands to stop shaking. He couldn’t fall apart now: he needed to keep it together. He couldn’t let that thing get into his brother’s car and drive out of this cornfield. One of his hands lifted from the earth and fumbled behind him for the gun. Okay, then. Kill it. But not … not until he’d found out what it had done with Dean. Hurt it first, then. Just enough to get its attention. Then he could ask it some questions.

Steadier now, Sam moved out of the cornfield, holding the gun tightly in both hands. He crossed the open space between the corn and the old truck as quickly as he could. Crawled underneath the truck into the shadows, and propped himself up on his elbows to wait.

The thing with his brother’s face came out fifteen minutes later, moving slowly as if it was hurt. There was blood on its shirt. Landon had managed to hit it a few times with those shots, then. Good. That made things easier for Sam. He watched it cross the yard, keeping the gun trained on the bulk of its torso, as it made for the old-fashioned water pump in the yard. When it reached the pump the thing came to a stop. Pulled the shirt off over its head and went to its knees, hard.

Sam swallowed thickly. It was difficult to watch this, even though he knew it wasn’t really his brother, because it _looked_ like Dean, it really did. It looked like Dean in pain, specifically, and Sam's first instinct was to rush over there and help. Fucking bad instinct, when he’d just watched it murder one of Dad’s old friends. When it had been knocking off hunters right and left. Because there was no doubt in his mind that he’d found the fabled Angel of Death. No wonder De—it hadn’t wanted to go hunting for itself.

It pissed Sam off to think of this son of a bitch using Dean’s face to get close to other hunters: to get up inside their guard so that it could strike. It would piss Dean off too, if he knew about it. If he wasn’t already— _please God no, don’t go there, Sam, he’s fine you’ll find him_. Sam grit his teeth and focused. Waited for it to turn toward him so that he could get a good shot off.

He watched as the son of a bitch put one hand on the pump to steady itself, then moved the other up toward its stomach. Saw its tattooed shoulders bunch and spasm. Saw it fall sideways and lay shaking on the ground.

“Ohfuckinghelldamnit!” Obscenities screamed in his brother’s voice. The thing was still for a long while, but Sam could tell it was still alive from the tremors that shook its body. Then its head ducked down toward its stomach and he heard, faintly, “Oh, that’s just fucking great,” in an annoyed, exhausted tone of voice that was pure _Dean_. Which … no. Couldn’t be.

But Sam didn’t take the shot that presented itself when the thing pushed itself to its feet and staggered over to the Impala’s trunk, where it fumbled in its jeans for the keys. He waited, listening, as it rooted around for something, muttering to itself. Then it slammed the trunk and moved back to the center of the yard, one of Dean's hunting knives dangling from its right hand. It stood there for a moment, looking down at the blade, and then shrugged.

“Oh, the hell with it.” And it drove the knife into its stomach in one swift motion. Bit back on a scream and moved the knife sideways, opening up a gash in its side. Then its fingers were loosening around the handle as it blacked out: Sam could see its eyes roll back into its head. The knife fell onto the ground and the thing wearing Dean's face followed it. It was only down for a few seconds, though, before it snapped back to consciousness, breathing hard and looking down at what it had done to itself. “Goddamn it!”

Which was a funny sort of thing to say if you’d just sliced yourself open, Sam thought, but then he looked closer and saw that the wound was already closing up: was healing. Part of his brain filed that away for future reference while the rest of him watched the thing wearing his brother’s face grab the edges of the wound and pull, tearing it wide. Making itself black out again.

 _What in the fucking hell?_ Sam couldn’t take this anymore. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t his brother. He wasn’t going to sit here while it … hell, while it tortured itself for no good reason. He could do that for it, if it liked pain so damned much, and get some questions answered while he was at it.

Sam scrambled out from under the truck and moved to stand over the thing, gun held tightly in both hands and trained on that horribly familiar face. He stood there, waiting for it to come around again, and eventually it obliged him. It took the thing a few moments to register the shadow hanging over it, and then it flopped over onto its back, rolling up forest green eyes clouded with pain. Looked at him as though he were a stranger for a long while, then closed its eyes again and turned its face away.

“Fucking hell, Sammy,” it whispered.

He kicked it in the side. Hard. Tried not to feel too good at the hurt little sound it made when he did that. “You don’t get to call me that,” he ground out.

“Sammy…”

He kicked it again. And again. Heard something break and couldn’t stop. This thing had taken Dean away from him. It had been using Dean’s face. His voice. But it wouldn’t stop calling him by that hated nickname until he had kicked it back into unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam chained it to the truck while it was out. It was sickening to hear the ribs snapping back into place—to feel them moving together under his hands as he lifted the body—but he supposed it was for the best. He wasn’t going to get much out of it, the shape it was in. He needed it more coherent than it had been, that much was clear. So he moved it to the truck and handcuffed its hands to the axle. Then he pulled an old crate over and sat down on it, hands dangling between his knees. He waited.

It recognized him instantly when it came around again. He watched it look away from him, counterfeiting shame. Watched as it realized where it was and in what kind of condition. Its head sagged onto its chest.

“Finish it, Sam. What are you waiting for?”

Sam shook his head sharply. “Not yet. It’s time for some questions.”

The thing put its head back, resting it against the side of the truck. “Yeah, well, I’m not really in a sharing mood. So go ahead and get it over with already. And make sure it’s a clean shot. Heart or head. Better make it the heart, I might come back from the brain trauma.”

“Shut up!” Sam knew he was rapidly losing his grip on the situation, but hadn’t things been spiraling out of control since he had peered in through that window? “You don’t talk like him, you hear me!”

It cocked an eye open to peer at him. “Who the hell am I supposed to talk like, Sam?” It shifted as though trying to get comfortable and winced. “Damn it.”

“Sorry about the accommodations. You won’t have to put up with them for long.”

“God just kill me already, will you?”

“Where is he?”

“Where’s who?”

“You know who I’m talking about, asshole. Where’s my brother?”

It opened both eyes at that, wide, and then shut them. Dropped its head forward onto its chest again. Its shoulders rose and fell in jerky motions and for a moment Sam thought it was crying. Then the wind shifted and he heard its muffled laughter.

He cocked the gun. For emphasis. “Where’s Dean?” he asked again.

“Figures,” it said. “You are so fucking predictable, man. Can’t believe your big brother would go around killing people, so I must be some kind of evil monster, right?”

“Where is he?”

“Well I’ve got news for you, Sammy. I did it, all right? Me. Dean. Hell, I’ve got so much blood on my hands you could baptize me in the papal fountain at Rome and I’d come out damned. You want to kill me? Fine. Fucking do it: it’d be a relief. But you kill _me_ , all right? Not some figment of your imagination. You don’t get to go into this blind.”

“You’re not my brother.”

“Why? Because I would never kill anyone?”

“No. Because you’ve got wings. Because I just watched you slice yourself wide open and now you’re fine. You’re not human. So start talking before I start putting bullets in you.”

It stared at him, smiling that tight, little smile Dean had always worn when he was royally pissed off. Sam leaned forward and pressed the gun against its right knee. See how quiet it could keep when it was down a kneecap.

“You’ve got to three. One, two, th—” He choked on the rest of the word as the thing brought its arms forward, a broken length of chain dangling from each cuff, and grabbed his shoulders, smashing its forehead against the bridge of his nose. White flared in his vision and he tasted copper. The world spun around Sam as he was pushed over on his back and relieved of the gun. Then the thing’s foot was on his chest and he opened his eyes to find himself staring down the barrel of his own gun.

“Stronger too, aren’t I?” it snarled. “Now you listen to me, you ungrateful son of a bitch. My name is Dean Winchester. Like it or not, I’m your brother. And I’ve been having a fucking shitty year. I’ve killed, maimed and tortured. No rape yet, but I’m sure she’ll get around to it. Or it will. So I’m sorry if your little hysterics are so unimpressive right now. Deal with it. Move on.”

It knelt, pulled Sam up by his shirt and shoved the gun into his hand. Moved his hand so that the muzzle was resting against its chest. “Go ahead and shoot me. Do it, Sammy. But I want …” Its voice broke, and there were unshed tears in its eyes. “I want you to know it’s me when you do it.”

It let go of his hand then, and knelt there, waiting. No, not it. Him. _Dean_. Oh fuck it really was Dean.

“Dean …” Sam almost couldn’t hear himself when he spoke, but the corner of Dean’s lips quirked up humorlessly at the faint sound.

“It’s okay, Sam,” he said, gently. “You can do it. Pull the trigger. Just a little pressure and then it’ll be over. It’s all right. I want you to, okay? Just do this one thing for me, okay? It’s all right, you’ll be fine.”

God, it was so typically _Dean_ to talk Sam through shooting him that Sam choked out a laugh. He tried to lower the gun so that it wasn’t pointing at his brother anymore and Dean’s hands caught his, raised it up again. So Sam let go of the handle and it fell to the ground between them—miracle that it didn’t go off when it hit. Sam leaned forward, groping for Dean, trying to pull him into a hug, and Dean pushed him away.

“Damn it, Sam! Can’t you do one fucking thing I ask you?”

Sam shook his head. He was crying now, goddamn girly thing to do but he couldn’t help it. “Ask something else, Dean,” he choked out. “Anything else, but not … I can’t.”

“I’ve killed, Sam,” Dean said, and his voice was hard. “I’ll kill again if you don’t stop me.”

“No.” Sam fumbled for his brother, couldn’t see straight through the tears. “Dean, don’t say—”

“It’s the truth, Sam,” Dean snarled. He pushed himself to his feet. “You saw me, didn’t you? With Landon?”

“Yeah, Dean, but—”

“I’ve killed dozens of people, Sam. Some of them I tortured first. Hours of blood and pain. If I were a demon you’d put me down in a second.”

“You’re my brother.”

“So? Come on, Sam. Do it.” And he was back in front of Sam, shoving a gun Sam couldn’t see back into his hands. “Right here. It’ll be quick. I won’t feel a thing. Shoot me, damn it!”

Sam wrested control of the gun away from his brother and then threw it, not caring where it landed as long as it was far away. “Shoot yourself, you asshole!” he shouted.

“You don’t think I haven’t tried? You don’t think I wouldn’t do it in a fucking second if I could? She fixed me, Sam, she fucking collared me and neutered me and I can’t—”

“Who?” Sam scrambled after the scrap desperately. This was the second time Dean had mentioned someone—a woman—and Sam knew that Dean would never kill anyone, not unless he was forced into it. He just wouldn’t.

But Dean clammed up again, even now, and so Sam grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him. “Who, Dean? Who’s doing this to you? Tell me so we can—”

“So you can what?” Bitter. Oh, his brother’s voice was bitter. “Forget about her again?”

“Dean, I don’t know what you’re—”

“You brought me to her, Sam.”

“Who?" Sam blinked. "No, I didn’t, I—”

“You didn’t have a choice, okay? I was … sick. We tangled with some incubi—few years ago, now, in Dayton, Ohio, I think. I got bitten—few times.”

“Jesus, Dean—”

“Shut up and listen, Sam. I got infected: something called Aspect of the Demon. I was delirious, hurting. We looked around for help, but there wasn’t anyone—not until Bobby called and gave you her name.”

Sam didn’t remember any of it, he didn’t, but he could hear the name in his head, so he said it. “Rachel Hanlon.”

“Harlon. If that’s her real name, which it isn’t.”

Sam nodded, squared his jaw. “Tell me everything.”

Dean did. When he was done, Sam was certain that his brother had left things out—how Rachel had convinced him to do what she wanted, for one—but the bare bones of the matter was there. Sam’s betrayal laid out in front of him like a fucking storybook.

“It’s not your fault, Sam.” Dean had said it before, again and again as he talked, and Sam didn’t believe him any more now than he had then. But he knew better than to say anything about it.

“Dean, you said she—you said she ‘convinced’ you to—”

“It’s not important, Sam.”

“Dean. Please. Everything. I have to know ...” He swallowed. _I have to know what I did. What I did to you._

Dean sighed. “Not torture, okay?” Sam gave Dean his best _‘do I really look that stupid to you?’_ look and Dean pursed his lips. “All right, she did, but it wasn’t—she didn’t do it because of that, okay? That was my own fault for mouthing off.”

“Then how did she—”

“She said she’d sell me, Sam.”

“Sell you? What do you mean, sell you?”

“Same ritual she put me and you through, I guess. Only with her in your place and someone else in hers. She told me about some of her potential buyers. I figured I’d rather go kill a few evil sons of bitches than end up some pedophile’s lap dog.”

Kids. Yeah, that’d do it. Dean talked a good talk, but he was a soft-hearted pushover when it came to kids. But Dean had that look on his face, like there was more, and Sam wasn’t going to want to hear it.

“What?” Sam asked.

“The demon,” Dean said, and he didn’t have to clarify which one.

“What about it, Dean?”

“It was there. When she—when she decided it was time to _graduate_ me to humans. She invited it. She said she’d sell me to it if I didn’t play along.”

“What?” Sam’s voice cracked on the word. The demon would have killed Dean. It would have bled him the way it had started to in the cabin …Except that as Sam watched Dean’s face—watched his eyes, which was where his brother hid his emotions—he realized that wasn’t what the demon had threatened to do at all. “It was going to use you to get to me, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Dean dropped his eyes, but he nodded. “Yeah. She brings it back every time she asks for more. Has it around for tea, she says, but she uses it to push me further. Every time she wants—” He cut himself off.

Sam wanted to ask what was worse than murder, but he thought that he already knew. Torture, Dean had said before. Maiming. He wondered if there had been any children. Wanted to ask—to know how much Dean had done for him—but didn’t know how to.

“No kids,” Dean said, and, meeting his brother’s eyes, Sam wondered who the psychic one really was here. “Not yet. But—the demon said something the last time it was there, and ... and I think _it’s_ the one that’s been pushing me. The bitch—Rachel—said she isn’t allowed to interfere, whatever that means, but she can hire herself out to either side.” He smiled tightly. “I asked her a few months ago why she was always sending me after our guys if she was a neutral player. You know what she said?”

Sam shook his head.

“She said that demons pay well for death, but humans want to kill things for themselves. She has a point, doesn’t she? Hunters don’t really do a lot of outsourcing.”

“You think the demon is paying her to have you kill hunters?” Sam asked.

“Why not? Hell, I might as well be its personal fucking hitman for all I know.” He paused and shook his head, grimacing. “Except for this one woman. That was personal for the bitch.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she left part of that demon aspect in me—the siren song? I thought it was an accident, but the bitch did it on purpose. The woman—Elise Tallahause was her name—she was fucking paranoid. Magic and regular security up the ass. Woman was more tightly guarded than Fort Knox. Bitch needed someone who could get Elise to come out to them. Hell, to me." Dean's hands clenched helplessly in the dirt. "She was kissing me when I killed her. Fucking messed up, right?”

Sam had gone cold. “I saw it.”

“You what?”

“I mean, I didn’t, but—I dreamed about it. I dreamed—Hell, Dean, I dreamed a lot of stuff. Maybe some of it was just me, dreaming, but I think—now—I think a lot of it was true. I think maybe I was seeing your memories”

Dean looked appalled. “God, Sam. Can’t you keep your brain in your own body?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know, Sam, I just—" Dean scrubbed a hand across his face wearily. "You weren’t supposed to know.”

“Well, I do, okay? I know and I’m glad. Because I’m going to kill that bitch.”

“Sam, you can’t just—”

“I know. I know we have to figure out what she is first. How to kill her. But, Dean? We’re going to fix this.”

Dean glanced at the house, where Landon’s body was probably beginning to draw flies. “Too late for that, Sam.”

Sam kept quiet because there wasn’t really anything he could say to that. Dean pushed himself to his feet. Sam watched him move gingerly over to the middle of the yard where he’d dropped the knife. Dean looked down at it for a moment, head bowed, and then came back over to Sam and offered it to him hilt first.

Sam eyed it distrustfully. “I wasn’t going to shoot you, Dean. I’m sure as hell not stabbing you.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I want to get cleaned up, Sam.”

“Okaaaaay…”

“Look, I need you to get the bullets out of me. I passed out inside too long: couldn’t get at them before the holes closed up. I’d do it myself, but I think you saw how good a job I was doing on my own.”

“Oh.” Sam took the knife and then just held it, looking up at his brother.

Dean sighed. “I’ll heal up again, Sam. It’s only for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, right. Um … where?”

Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and moved it so that the knife was resting lightly on his skin. “If I pass out while you’re doing this, the other one is about two inches to the left.”

“Okay.”

Dean let go of his wrist and shut his eyes, preparing himself.

“Dean?”

“God, Sam, _what_? We don’t have all day here.”

“Thank you.” And he pressed the knife forward.


End file.
